Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Let's get to it!
Dr. Judy Morgan
Welcome back to my Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. This week, I'm really excited to have my guest Angela Ardolino, who is a Pet Cannabis Expert, Founder of Fire Flake Farm, which I love this. It's a 15 year old rescue farm for farm animals and old dogs, where she's been practicing cannabis and mushroom medicine since 2016. She's a graduate of University of Vermont School of Medicine Cannabis Program Inaugural Class, and she's the Founder and Formulator of CBD Dog Health, and the newest addition, MycoDog, which is great. And she has her own podcast called Your Natural Dog. Angela, thank you for agreeing to come on this week.
Angela Ardolino
You bet. It's my honor. And I'm so happy to be here on your podcast. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Judy Morgan
So today, we want to talk about adaptogens. And we're going to find out what the heck that even means and how they can help particularly our senior pets fight disease and slow down degeneration, which we know that is a huge issue. For both dogs and cats. We see so much degenerative disease and so much chronic inflammation in our pets. We know that there's a lot of things that contribute to that both environmental, dietary, medications, so many things that unfortunately, we are always trying to help our pets but sometimes we end up having to do things that contribute to chronic degeneration and inflammation. So first of all, Angela, what, what are adaptogens? What does that even cover?
Angela Ardolino 1:50
Adaptogens are the a group of plants and fungi that literally when we consume them or our pets consume them, they get inside our body and adapt to what we need. So our stress level, if we need to ramp up the immune system, they'll do that if they need to calm down the immune system, they'll do that. They literally get in the body and go and find rogue cells. So some of the adaptogens like my favorite and what I consider the queen of all adaptogens is cannabis. Hemp for dogs but cannabis is part of the hemp. Hemp is part of the cannabis plant. It is the best one because it is interacting directly with our endocannabinoid system, which is the master of all systems in our bodies, in our in all animals' bodies. So having a hemp product and adding another adaptogen to it like a mushroom or an Astragalus root or an ashwagandha or bacopa monnieri, which are a few of my favorite ones, makes it even more powerful and synergistic. There's already research out there showing that if you put more than one mushroom together, and then add these herbs, that they are not only more synergistic, and more powerful, but they do things like interact with all five signaling pathways for pain, they interact with all 12 pathways, signaling pathways for cancer. So when a lot of these drugs that we prescribe our pets when they get old, pain meds, you know, for arthritis and things, and then God forbid they get cancer, all of the medications they get for that. Those medications are interacting with just one of those pathways. So a lot of times you find these old dogs on four or five different pain meds or seizure meds, and it's because it didn't do the trick. So instead of replacing it, they added another one because it interacts or does something else different in the body, when you literally can take three, you know, adaptogens and put them together and and accomplish and interact with all of the pathways. So once I learned that and understood that, I couldn't find products on the marketplace that were doing it when I first went to find full spectrum products, I could only find you know, this is back in 2016. I could only find products that were not full spectrum or they were human products that they just put a paw print, you know on it and they'd have other ingredients like flavoring or xylitol things like that, that were bad for it. So I was like, wow, I guess I need to formulate my own formulations. I did it in 2016.
Dr. Judy Morgan 4:35
You see this need for something and it's like, I guess I'm gonna have to do it. It's so funny because my husband and I will see something and we'll say somebody should and as soon as those words come out of our mouth, it's like Ah, dang it now we're gonna have to do that. We got elected to the school board that way one year. Nobody was running and I said, I said that is such a shame somebody should and as soon as I said it, I went ugh.
Angela Ardolino 5:00
That's a definition of a leader when you're the one that ends up doing it. Wait a minute, I didn't mean to do that. I just was making a suggestion.
Dr. Judy Morgan 5:09
I wanted somebody else. I just think it's a great idea. Right? But thank goodness, there are people like you who say somebody should and then and then you take the bull by the horns and actually do it. So how do well, first of all, I know from just using a lot of herbs and things in practice, that when when we take a plant, and we sort of dissect it, and we take one little part of it, or we extract one chemical or one active part of it, we really lose something. Because when I'm when you're talking about full spectrum, I'm thinking this is what you mean that we're we're using whole plant, or we're using all the different things that get extracted from the plant and not trying to because the the whole is more than the sum of its parts are. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So. So I, I find it to be so true. And when we look at drugs that we use in veterinary medicine, a lot of them came about because somebody found an active principle in a plant and said, Ooh, let's figure out what the active principle was. And then they synthetically make whatever that chemical was. But it really doesn't have nearly the effect that eating that whole plant would would have or using an extract from the whole plant.
Angela Ardolino
Right. That's exactly right. Or so if they don't synthesize it, they take out just like you said, one compound, so they isolate one compound, which they've already done with CBD. There's already a pharmaceutical drug where they isolated CBD I believe there's even one of the has a synthetic form of CBD also, those are approved and being used for seizures in children. So that's what people don't understand that there's also same thing with THC. There's a drug called Marinol, that is for chemo that goes with chemotherapy. And it's a THC, I think it's an isolate, I don't know, remember which one it is. But absolutely, anytime we're dealing with these adaptogenics, especially these types of medicines, you want the full. So when you want a full extract, you want the full extract of the flower. And the flower for mushrooms is the fruiting body. That's where those compounds that kill cancer and fight inflammation and balance the immune system that those are in there. You can't get them unless you extract them out of there. So the majority of the mushroom products on the market aren't extracts of the fruiting body. And to go back to what you just said about compounds taking out just isolates. We already know that two compounds found in Turkey Tail, PSK, and PSP, are being made as cancer treatment drugs in Japan. They are using them all the time, because research already proved that they worked, but you have to extract those out of Turkey Tail, you can't just eat turkey tail and think that you're going to get those two compounds. So everybody will take a piece of research, put out a product and have no idea that how to isolate how to extract it, how to preserve it, and then make it so that's good for dogs. So every that's what happened in the marketplace. Every time I would find something great. My dog got cancer. I was I was I'm was a I am a huge real mushrooms fan. But I was giving her six to eight different types of mushrooms at once in her food, in a powder. And I'm like God, I wish this was in a tincture and why can't this be in so I can give it to her like I give her CBD and it would just be so much easier. And then I couldn't find anybody doing it. I also couldn't get some of the mushrooms from real mushrooms during COVID. So that kind of put me in a panic. So literally I started to find research find out how do I get it in liquid form? How do I preserve it. And finally I found a Myco Alchemist out in Oregon who makes a human product that I love and then worked with him to make it appropriate for dogs and put in those mixture of mushrooms that I knew I could source in North America. Actually, in the northwest, it's all Washington, Portland and California, mostly Portland. We have a co op of farmers who grow them out in the woods on the wood that they're supposed to be grown on. So to me, I know that mushrooms and cannabis are both bio accumulators. So it matters what they're grown in what environment they're grown, the air and soil. So that makes a huge difference not only in their cannabinoid profile and their profiles of all those medicinal compounds, but to make sure we're not sucking up anything out of the earth like heavy metals or herbicides, pesticides or any of that stuff.
Angela Ardolino 10:07
So mushrooms and cannabis both have to be tested to make sure they don't have all of those things. But on the marketplace most products are either a broad spectrum product, meaning they put it through another process. And they try to take out the THC so it doesn't show up on a lab report. And you're not just taking out the THC, you're taking out a lot of the other compounds at the same time that help the the cannabinoids do their job. So you take away you lose, let's say myrcene, a terpene founded in cannabis that has so many wonderful qualities, you are taking away CBD's ability to maybe bind itself to a receptor, because you took away that it needs myrcene to do that. So that's why a full spectrum product when you're dealing with cannabis or hemp product is always the way to go. That's what research shows works. That's what stops seizures. That's what will help you, you know, fight cancer. And every senior pet, every senior citizen, pet or human should be on a full spectrum hemp extract every day, it really does bring so much relief to just those stupid aches and pains that you have to deal with and arthritis. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. That's how I found cannabis medicine in the first place. It's because I didn't want to take the prescription medication I was prescribed. It had already been linked to lymphoma. And I lived a pretty natural lifestyle. So I was like, Alright, let me see what I can find in nature. I know, I know. It's out there. And I tried cannabis. And I was like, Why isn't this why is this being kept from us? It's being kept from us because it grows like a weed, which is why it's called weed. And you can't take something that's found in nature and patent it and make billions of dollars off of it. So we either have to rip it apart, or keep the real thing from us and you know, make it difficult and say that THC is going to kill our dogs and pets and that it's dangerous so that they can make something else for our dogs. That's better?
Angela Ardolino 12:17
Nobody can argue with me, I get one old dog after another, you know, 12 years old, with everything wrong with them on, you know, five, six different medications and special shampoos and everything. They're still a disaster. We wean them off of all of that, change their diet, put them on finding the equivalent in nature which is usually in a hemp or an herb or a mushroom product and then combining them and bringing those dogs back to life. Put cancer in remission like three four times now, my Doberman had osteosarcoma and lived to 26 months, you know, that broke all kinds of records. She's a geriatric doberman. And literally, that's what we did. So I gave her THC every night at 10 milligrams every single night. So if anybody tells me that THC is dangerous for a dog, I'm like, well, it kept mine alive and pain free. And it helped her beat her cancer at 24 months.
Dr. Judy Morgan
I think a lot of that it's all about dosing. Yeah, purity, a product for sure. But also dosing, and there, they make it so difficult to even do the research trials. And again, because it's too easy to find in it like anybody can get it pretty much. And so it you're right, I mean, we we talk about this with food, with drugs, whatever, follow the money trail.
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:51
So when we're talking about using, so you have tinctures your MycoDog. They're tinctures. And we're just about to take a break. So when we come back, I want to talk about the difference between just feeding mushrooms or feeding, you know, ashwagandha plant or lavender, whatever our plants are. We're gonna talk about the difference between feeding something versus so we're just using a nutritional product versus using extracts or tinctures or something what the difference is.
Angela Ardolino
Functional food versus functional medicine.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Exactly, exactly. So we'll talk about that when we come back. We'll be right back after this message.
Product Spotlight 14:40
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Dr. Judy Morgan 15:15
Welcome back to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. My guest today is Angela Ardolino, Pet Cannabis Expert, Formulator of CBD Dog Health and also MycoDog and her own podcast the Your Natural Dog podcast. So we said we'd talk about functional food versus functional medicine. So I do so much with food. Chinese medicine, food therapy, TCVM, food energetics, that sort of thing. That's kind of my shtick. So I know that food can be very powerful. But a lot of times food itself is not enough to get us over that hurdle of. So I will add, like concentrated herbs, something like that. So I'd like you to sort of address the the difference between functional food versus functional medicine, when we need to kind of move from one to the other, and how they play together.
Angela Ardolino
Yeah, you're one of my favorites, because you've been talking about not only hemp but using mushrooms as part of their diet, which I don't know any other vet who has ever said that who's ever been like, here's the recipe and use shitaki mushrooms. So thank you for doing that. But mushrooms are an incredible. Hemp is too. Doesn't taste as good as mushrooms but they both are packed full of vitamins and minerals and nutrients and fatty acids and omegas. And the most the best thing about mushrooms is that they have a outer shell called Chitin. That is an insoluble fiber. So it works really well as you know part of a snack or food or including it. So it's wonderful that you're not getting if you are you're not getting enough of those medicinal compounds that you have to extract first. So Real Mushrooms and I both extract the same way. You have to extract to get to those compounds. So you have to go through what's called a dual extraction, which means you use both hot water and alcohol. The way we extract is a little different. But we follow the same principles that make sense because very few people do it the correct way. And you have to do this hot water sometimes more than once, and an alcohol and you have to do the alcohol to get the PSK and PSP that I talked about earlier and some of those incredible triterpenoids that you find in Reishi you cannot get them unless you do an alcohol extraction, and then you get rid of the alcohol. So you're not getting that when you just eat them. So a lot of people think they're getting those things and they're not. Most people like I said before are getting ground up substrate that have no fruiting bodies at all in it that are put in a capsule or in a powder and didn't even know that that was a thing until I was at AHVMA and somebody is you know, exhibiting there that has a product like that. So those products are usually grown on like oh, so they will show a Beta Glucan content, but it's the wrong beta glucans it's from oats and not from the mushrooms themselves because no mushrooms are in it just mycelium.. I call it Tempeh it's mycelium biomass so it's not it's more of a could be a functional food versus a medicinal product. So mushrooms can be both and what we're doing is a medicinal mushroom extract. So I researched which mushrooms I could source that we're really good at cancer, have already been proven to work one way or another in the you know the 12 pathways whether it's to stop it from spreading, stop it from either forming killing the tumor all of those things and then took those mushrooms and put them in one into an extract so that there could be this is what you get for your old dog or a dog that suffering from cancer. So I did all the research and work and even created a little guide that like you know separated out which ones do what so that I could keep track because literally people will go well which one should I take if my dog is suffering from this and I'm like okay, hold on. I kept trying this somewhere so that I can show you and tell you and then I've been added Yeah. And then added the the other herbs that have been already shown. So like Lion's Mane with the Bacopa monnieri and Reishi. So powerful. I can see a difference with my senior dogs like within a couple of days of giving it to him. Where not interested in food, sleeping a little bit getting up in the middle of the night wandering around, start giving it to him and that completely stops.
Angela Ardolino 20:00
And I know it's because I'm not only using this wonderful extract and these herbs, but I'm also combining it with CBD with the full spectrum hemp extract. So I know combining those together is really helping this animal. My 16 and a half year old we say is completely alive and thriving from his diet and his mushrooms, cannabis, because he is just happy and pain free.
Dr. Judy Morgan
I think our goal, we kind of have to get over this. Oh, he was 12. That was a good age. It's not for our dogs, I'm really looking for two decades. And for our cats I'm looking for three decades. Now. Do you use all these same products for kitty cats?
Angela Ardolino
Absolutely. Everything is safe for kitty cats. Every same with horses, you have to remember that this is basically what is found in nature. And probably what the animals in the wild were treating themselves with anyway, when they got a bellyache or a virus, they probably went and found that herb or that mushroom that helped them with their ailment. But yeah, they're good for anything. They everybody has an endocannabinoid system, all mammals, all animals, lizards, I've used it on my farm on all my farm animals on a regular basis, it does wonders for chickens. I've watched chickens, like get attacked by a dog and me going, Oh, my God die, give him he'll get up and go walk over to everybody in the whole sides open. That was my favorite thing to be able to have. Because I know that I immediately have a tool that I can get rid of stress and pain immediately. And then I can, what do I do next? Do we need to rush do I need to you know, so the next thing exactly. So I know I can get rid of those two things, which always is brings me so much.
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:58
So we know that certainly these products could replace some pharmaceuticals. If someone wanted to use some of these products to replace pharmaceuticals, would they use the two together to start and then kind of wean off the pharmaceuticals as the because what I've told people for years is that when we give a drug, we sort of get a pretty immediate effect. When we're treating with food or herbs, we have to allow the body to process that, utilize that as building blocks for it to be able to repair. So the products that you're talking about would be fine for people to get started and then try to wean the medications off.
Angela Ardolino
Absolutely, yeah. And they are you'll find, you know, we have so much education material that will show you you know the difference of you know, what can you get from a steroid versus a full spectrum hemp extract, what can you get, you know, basically everything I have found a natural, the natural you know what we started with the nature for everything, so it's really hard for me to go to anything, whether it's an I won't touch an antibiotic, I won't unless I absolutely have to, and I haven't so far, you know, and I got some old dogs with lots of problems, and you know, lots of cancer. Did I just turn you off?
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:25
We're good. So what pets do you think would benefit the most from the adaptogens? Or are we really looking at this for seniors? Would you recommend it earlier in life for any?
Angela Ardolino
I think that all animals should be on once they hit senior should be on a full spectrum hemp and mushrooms, you know, whether it's like we have a Clarity formula that has lion's mane and Reishi together. And I would suggest that if you have a dog that chronically has issues or genetically has issues, then yeah, you would start earlier. So for instance, with my Doberman, if I know that forgot the statistics, like one in nine large breed dogs, which I think the lower the number is even higher dogs is going to get osteosarcoma. I started asking all my holistic vets, why not start giving them the hemp at a year old and they said start giving it to him at six months old. If we know that it's prevented. Mina at 24 months after being diagnosed with like, you know, almost grapefruit on her wrist, had no metastasis in her entire body. We did an eight diagnostic test and it didn't show up anywhere. It was all contained in the wrist because of the mushrooms and cannabis. So and of course the diet not feeding the cancer. You know, that's the type. That's what we want to happen. So if we're getting older and we know that things are getting, it's going to be a little bit harder to keep cancer away and these other diseases away. This is the perfect way to do it because it's interacting with your endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for all of the other systems and keeping them at homeostasis. It's a natural painkiller. So you can get rid of pain and stiffness without, you know, messing with your liver and kidneys and putting some synthetic chemical that we don't know where it gets stored in your tissues and what it does? So to me, it's completely natural. And I'm hoping that I can keep on having story after story of a dog with cancer that we get rid of, and it's 14 years old, and we get another two, three years out of it. And we don't get just two, three years, we get it off everything. And it is thriving. It's, you know, went from going staring in the corners to running with a pack and getting in the lake and you're like, Well, what happened and it's the brain is working a little better. It's feeling good. Nobody can argue with me with what what the benefits are.
Dr. Judy Morgan
It is amazing what we can do. And it's not about just length of life. It's about quality of life. And that is that is our goal. Angela, you are a wealth of information. We are out of time. I can't that went really fast. But thank you very much. And all of Angela's MycoDog products are available at DrJudyM organ.com. We also have affiliate links for CBD dog health. And I'm a huge fan!
Angela Ardolino
That means so much to me. I'm such a huge fan of you. Thank you so much.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
Disclaimer
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
